Pat Boran was born in Portlaoise, Ireland in 1963 and currently lives in Dublin. Since receiving the Patrick Kavanagh Award for Poetry in 1989, he has published four collections of poetry as well as New and Selected Poems (2005/2007). In addition to poetry he has published short stories for adults, Strange Bedfellows (1991) and a short fiction title for children including All the Way from China (1999), which was a finalist for the Bisto Book of the Year Award. He has also produced a number of non-fiction works including the popular writers' handbook The Portable Creative Writing Workshop (1999/2005) and A Short History of Dublin (2000). A former editor of Poetry Ireland Review, he has been presenter of The Poetry Programme on RTÉ Radio 1. He is editor of Wingspan: A Dedalus Sampler (2006) and Flowing, Still: Irish Poets on Irish Poetry (Dedalus 2009). In 2007 he was elected to membership of Aosdána and in 2008 received the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award in the US.